You throw the ball. You catch the ball. You hit the ball…Of course, baseball fans know that this line from Bull Durham is far from true, part of the humor of the movie and a huge part of the fun of the game. This blog is a space to talk about baseball, being a baseball fan, all of those things that make the game fun and the Angels, because they make baseball fun for me.

Five Things the Passionate Baseball Fan Should Appreciate About the Super Bowl

Personally, I am not a football fan. I don’t actively dislike football so much as it just fails to hold my attention for any length of time. I understand the rules and some of the basic strategies. I enjoy the pomp and circumstance of the Super Bowl, all the more so on those occasions, like today, when it’s actually a good game. But, well, it’s not like I would even know who was playing well in advance if it weren’t for the fact that my boss is from Boston with all of the fan affiliations that that entails and some of the guys at work are Giants fans. Still, watching the game today at my department’s annual Super Bowl party, it occurred to me that love it, hate it or something in between, there are several things the passionate baseball fan should appreciate about the Super Bowl.

1) Whether you are also a rabid football fan or someone like me who can take it or leave it, I think all passionate baseball fans can agree that single best thing about the Super Bowl is that it means our long winter ordeal is almost over, pitchers and catchers are mere days away from reporting. Oh, sure. Fine. There is the game itself and all that, you more rabid two and three sport types say. But ask yourself this, how often is the game really that good? Personally I remember a lot more dull one-sided exhibition-y affairs than I do real, exciting games. So I stand by my number one, thank you very much. Which brings me to…

2) More often than not, the Super Bowl is one of the more potent reminders of how much we should appreciate baseball’s lack of a clock. Let’s hear it for no “now stall for the next 8 minutes until the clock runs out” strategy. Hip. Hip. Hooray!! Because as fun and complex strategy laden as the 1st half of the Super Bowl often is, the 4th quarter, and sometimes much of the 2nd half, is just as often dull and plodding with the game’s outcome already decided. Clearly this year’s Super Bowl did not suffer from a ho hum 4th quarter, however this is not always or even often the case.

3) The food! Baseball is a marathon not a sprint, as every manager and most of the players will tell us countless times throughout the season and the spreads we put out for enjoying the game reflect this. No way, no how could we indulge in the wonderfully glutinous array of tastiness that is the traditional Super Bowl spread for every game of a four to seven game World Series, let alone for the regular season. We’d die from the sheer excess of it all. So baseball fans should appreciate and enjoy the ritual of the Super Bowl super munchies for the rare opportunity that it is.

4) Practice, practice, practice. I don’t know about you all, but I put my throat through a serious workout during the regular baseball season. Yelling. Cheering. Ranting at the tv. It can be tough on the unprepared body. This is probably not an issue for the multisport fans among us but it’s not like I really indulge in these activities in the offseason. I mean, seriously, “All right Bohannan! Way to bad ass your way out of the that one.” or “Come on Chef Freitag, can’t you see he respected the ingredient?!” just doesn’t really work for me. So the Super Bowl is kind of like that initial work out preparing my throat for the Spring Training that will fully prepare it for the regular season to come.

5) Camaraderie! Again, this is probably not as much an issue for some of you who are multi-sport fans. But for those of us who only or who mostly come alive for baseball, it’s not just missing the season, it’s missing the camaraderie of sharing the game with friends, with family, with complete strangers at the ballpark, at the sports bar, tailgating in the parking lot. The Super Bowl is one great big excuse to enjoy a little tide me over sports fueled camaraderie until the regular baseball season begins with a huge party…even if a lot of the participants are only watching for the commercials. My department throws an especially fun Super Bowl party and, wow, that really hit the spot for me today.

Now, the Super Bowl is over. Let the happy dancing in honor of the close proximity of the annual reporting of pitchers and their masked counterparts commence. One. Two. Oh, come on. You know you’re going to do it. Three. Uh huh. I thought so.😉

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18 Comments

I was always more of a baseball fan than football. I played fantasy baseball for, what, 12 years. This is the first year I am not playing due to time constraints.

But while I do enjoy the game, I have found it increasingly hard to watch an entire baseball game. Maybe that’s because the average game is over 3 hours now due to pitching changes after every batter from the 7th inning on or whatever, but I just can’t bear it anymore. Maybe I have AD/HD or something, but I’m finding watching sports like football more exciting these days.

Thank you for dropping by my blog and commenting, Rob. I don’t mind a long game myself, but you like what you like and I doubt preferring football means you have ADHD.🙂 I definitely agree about all of the pitching changes though. Over specialization of pitchers is one of my pet peeves.

Was that a “Hell On Wheels” reference under practice, practice practice (All right Bohannan! Way to bad ass your way out of the that one)? Just curious. Also, I am a multi-sport fan, but baseball is my passion. Nothing like hearing the words, pitchers and catchers report.

The kids and I really didn’t watch much of it. We spend most of the time on skates at the ice rink, then had to watch ‘The Simpsons’. I’m glad it was a good game, but very glad that the NFL is over. The Baseball light at the end of the tunnel is in clear veiw…
–Mike

I think we should also declare the Superbowl as the official start of the MLB Blogging season. That night and the next morning my mailbox was full of notices that new posts were just waiting to be read. Let the Baseball Season Begin!!!!!!!

Thanks DDboy, that’s very nice of you. I keep meaning to add you and your cousin to my list too. Addng the links is a lot easier than it’s going to look when you see this long explanation. There are a lot of steps/buttons to click, but it’s easy:

Go to your dashboard. On the left hand side bar, hover over the link button (the chain) and then select All links from the expanded menu that appears. You can add as many links as you like using the “add new” button at the top. It’s pretty self explanatory after that – fill in the name you want to appear, copy/paste the web address, add in a description if you like. The way I divided my list up by division is through the use of link categories. You can use categories to make an kind of link groups you like. You can either create a category while you are creating a link (down at the bottom of the ad link page, there is another button to create a category, then check the box for that category) or you can go back to the link button in the left side bar and select Link Category and then fill in then fill in the name and click “add new link category.”

Once you are finished creating your links, refresh your blog and see if they show up. If they do not, go back to your dashboard. On the left hand side bar, hover over the appearance button (4th up from the bottom on mine) and then select Widgets from the expanded menu that appears. The left 2/3 of the page should say “Available widgets” and the right 1/3 should say “Sidebar”. You want to drag and drop the little rectangle that says “Links” from “Available Widgets” into “Sidebar” and make sure it sticks. Once it’s in the sidebar you can drag it up or down so the links are where you want them to be in the sidebar. If you have multiple categories, clink on the arrow in the right corner of the link box to expand it. Make sure it is set to show all links, or use the drop down to pick the links you want to show.

Hover over the links button in your dashboard sidebar again and select add category. Use the buttons to create a category called whatever you want your links list to be called: Bleacher Boy’s Favorite Blogs, or whatever. Then go back to each of your links through the dashboard and edit them one by one. In the edit screen, check the box next to your new category. If the links then disappear from the side bar of your blog when you refresh, you’ll need to go back into widgets through the dashboard, go to where you have the link box in the sidebar side, click the little arrow and make sure you set the dropdown to Show All Links. No worries about the questions. We all have them when we’re starting out on the blogs and I am happy to help.🙂

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